Saturday, March 28, 2009

Kent's Geometer Moth (Selenia kentaria)

(Photo taken on 03/25/09 by Marvin)

Kent's Geometer Moth (Selenia kentaria)

One of the many Geometridae moths that inhabit the central and eastern mixed hardwood forests of North America. Unlike most moths, this species holds its wings overhead as do butterflies. Larva is an "inch worm" caterpillar that mimics a twig. (See here for photo)


Sources:
BugGuide
University of Alberta


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Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Checkered Beetle (Enoclerus ichneumoneus)

(Photo taken on 03/23/09 by Marvin)

Checkered Beetle (Enoclerus ichneumoneus)

Like many insects, Checkered Beetles do not have a significant economic impact upon human agricultural endeavors and, therefore, haven't been studies a great deal. About all I could find out about them is that both larvae and adults are predators. Some adults feed on pollen, some species are attracted to carrion and stored animal products. Their typical habitat is wooded areas where they can be found under bark, in galls and around woody plants. I have seen a checkered beetle eating squash bug eggs.

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Monday, March 23, 2009

Today's Flowers: Bloodroot

                                                                                                                                      (Photo taken on 03/22/09 by Jo)

Bloodroot (Sanguinaria canadensis)

Bloodroot is a member of the Poppy family. Its name is derived from the red juice that can be extracted from it's red-orange roots (actually rhizomes). Various medicinal and mystical properties have been associated with this juice in the past. However, since the juice is escharotic (a substance that causes tissue to die and slough off) and an incorrect internal dosage is toxic, the FDA recommends that bloodroot not be used by herbal healers.


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Saturday, March 21, 2009

Wild Plum Blossoms

                                                                                                       (Photo taken on 03/18/09 by Marvin)

Wild Plum Blossoms

According to the field guilds, we could have several different varieties of wild plums and they hybridize easily in the wild. I'm not even going to attempt a species ID.

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Thursday, March 19, 2009

Peach Blossom Time in the Ozarks


                                                                                                                                  (Photo taken on 03/18/09 by Marvin)


Peach Blossoms


Growing peaches in the Ozarks is an excellent hobby for anyone who thrives on dashed hopes and expectations.  Here in northern Arkansas we are far enough south that longer days and warmer temperatures coax our peaches into bloom about this time -- or a little earlier -- every year, but we are far enough north that we will get at least one more hard freeze -- hard enough to destroy blooms or recently set fruit -- four years out of five.


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Wednesday, March 18, 2009

Honey Bee (Apis mellifera)

                                                                                                          (Photo taken 03/16/09)


Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) on Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardamine concatenata).  The toothwort is one of the earliest blooming wildflowers in our area.


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Tuesday, March 17, 2009

Our 2009 Gardening Season Begins




Jo is weeding the bed where our red potatoes will soon be planted.


The veggie gardening season of 2009 has officially begun. On the one hand, it's terrific that we can finally get outside and get to gardening. On the other hand, ahead lies about six months of almost daily work out in the garden.


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Saturday, March 07, 2009

January Ice Storm: Part I

A light freezing drizzle began falling here in north central Arkansas just after midnight on Tuesday, 1/27/09.  As the morning progressed, drizzle became light rain.  We lost electrical power around eight o'clock Tuesday morning.  Northern Arkansas and surrounding areas are prone to ice storms because we often experience cold surface temperatures with warmer, moister air from the Gulf of Mexico riding just above.  (See NOAA's Winter precipitation types and their environments.)

Every three or four years we have an ice storm bad enough it takes down a few power lines – usually when trees fall on them – and we are without electricity for two or three days.  By late morning, we'd had that typical ice storm.  Unfortunately, this ice storm was far from finished.  A moderate rain began falling
around noon and fell steadily until almost midnight.  By late morning you could stand out on our front porch and hear a “pop” every few seconds.  Sometimes the the “pop” was fairly gentle as a small limb broke.  A larger limb breaking was louder.  Sometimes the “pop” sounded almost as loud as a gunshot when a tree truck suddenly snapped under the strain.  The sound of trees being broken into bits is awful – and it continued steadily for around twelve hours.  During most of the afternoon, our temperature was sitting right at 32ºF/0ºC – just a degree or two warmer and all of that destruction would never have happened.

I haven't taken a formal survey, but I'd guesstimate that around 10-15% of our trees are totally destroyed, either uprooted, snapped in two or are just a stripped trunk with no branches. Another 30-40% have severe damage (i. e. are missing their tops and/or several major limbs).  I doubt any tree larger than a sapling came through the ice storm unscathed.

Most of the severe damage from the ice storm only occurred in the upper elevations.  The valleys didn't get nearly as much ice as we did.  However, right after the ice storm, no one had electricity.   The service between towns goes across some of those higher elevations and was brought down in the ice storm.  It took about a week before the small towns in our area had power restored.   Emergency food and shelter was provided for those who were dependent upon electricity for heating and cooking.  A National Guard unit out of Oklahoma even set up portable facilities providing showers and clothes washing.  Since we heat with wood and cook with propane, we didn't need the emergency help and didn't know about the showers and washing machines until they were already gone.


The ice storm was predicted, though there was no way to predict how bad it was going to be.  I made a trip into town on Monday to stock up on supplies.  I did pretty good stocking up on food items, but totally failed elsewhere.  I bought neither extra batteries nor gasoline.  (In my defense, I will say those two items have never been needed in the past after an ice storm.)   I also didn't do well with my purchasing of coffee.  I stocked up on coffee in bean form, forgetting that the coffee grinder must have electricity.  We had a stove top percolator from our camping gear, so we could make coffee, but for a while there I thought I was going to have to take a hammer to those coffee beans to break them up into a brewable size.  Jo eventually remembered the hand-cranked grain mill we've had packed away for years.  It's not a very handy tool for grinding coffee beans, but it works better than busting them up with a ball peen.

The morning after the storm, Jo and I braved a trip up the road.  Walking up the road wasn't entirely safe, but less dangerous than walking in the woods where limbs and trees were still succumbing to the stress of the ice load, breaking and falling.  I'd estimate there were at least three dozen trees of various sizes partially or completely blocking our road out.  At first, we decided to let someone else – the county or the electric co-op – clear the road and rescue us.  We reasoned that a crew with the proper equipment could clear the road down to our house in an hour or so whereas it would take Jo and I two or three days of hard work.  Having to cut all that debris up into pieces small enough for us to move would be a slow process.  It would also be a somewhat dangerous process since most of the trees were hung up and only partially down and many were entangled with other limbs and trees – and the power line.  Some limbs and trees were still under a lot of stress.  An inattentive saw cut could release a trapped limb that would re-arrange your head.

However, after a few days we realized the damage throughout the county was so extensive that no one was likely to rescue us any time soon.  So after giving the ice a few days to melt, we began chainsawing our own way out.  We made it about three-quarters of the way out when the county crew showed up and finished the job coming from the other direction.  On Tuesday, 2/3/09, we could drive out  for the first time in a week.

End of Part I.  More to follow.

(Note:  As time and a slow dialup connection allow, I will be editing and uploading ice storm photos to a Picasa online album.   If you want to check out the Picasa album from time to time, it is here.)

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Friday, March 06, 2009

Daffodil






One of our first daffodil blooms of Spring, 2009.  The first blooms actually opened yesterday, but it was much too windy to get a decent photo.  Today was still windy, but not quite so bad.

These earliest blooming daffodils are part of a group growing randomly at the edge of the woods, a group transplanted by dragline and bulldozer when our water line was installed a couple of years ago.  Tenacious!


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Thursday, March 05, 2009

Frog Eggs





For a couple of weeks now, I've been hearing peepers every time the weather warmed up a bit.  Then, last Friday while Jo and I were cleaning up ice storm debris in the pond/creek area near our house, we discovered frog eggs clinging to a couple of branch we pulled out of the pond.  Another sure sign that spring is on the way.  We trimmed off the stems with the eggs attached and returned them to the water.


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Monday, March 02, 2009

Snow Hiding from the Sunshine



We received a light snowfall Saturday, not quite enough to cover the ground.  Only snow able to hide in the shadows remained after Sunday's abundant sunshine.


(One of the fallen, broken trees chainsawed short enough not to protrude into the road.) 
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